Lucas reveals he signed Hamill, Ford and Fisher for Star Wars Ep VII

The rumours started almost as soon as it had been announced
that Disney had bought Lucasfilm and would
release Star Wars Episode VII in 2015. Even
before we knew anything about the new movie, the consensus from
Star Wars fandom at large seemed to be that Harrison Ford, Mark
Hamill and Carrie Fisher obviously needed to
star in it.

In the months that followed, each member of the trinity teased
some level of involvement in the project; Hamill mentioned to Entertainment Tonight that the actors hadn't
signed contracts but were "in the stage where they want us to go in
and meet with Michael Arndt, who is the writer, and Kathleen
Kennedy, who is going to run Lucasfilm." Earlier this week,
Fisher told Palm Beach Illustrated point blank that she would
return for the latest instalment, an admission quickly followed by
a statement from her publicist that of course she was joking. (Ford, meanwhile, has been more
circumspect, using anonymous third parties to signal his openness to the idea.)

Now, however, George Lucas has let it slip that he signed all
three actors for the next movie, if not more beyond that.
In a Bloomberg Businessweek story about Disney's buyout of
Lucasfilm, the Star Wars creator reveals that
Lucasfilm "had already signed Mark and Carrie and Harrison -- or we
were pretty much in final stages of negotiation [when the Disney
deal came about]. So I called them to say, 'Look, this is what's
going on'."

Lucas seemed to immediately realise what he had said and
attempted to backtrack from the admission, saying "Maybe I'm not
supposed to say that. I think they want to announce that with some
big whoop-de-do, but we were negotiating with them," and adding, "I
won't say whether the negotiations were successful or not." Don't
worry, George. I think that saying that you "had already signed"
the actors pretty much says it all.

Still, Disney -- and director JJ Abrams -- are the ones at the
helm of Star Wars now, and they have yet to
confirm the casting. So when will we hear the original word on the
return of the classic Star Wars trio? And should we
expect more familiar faces from the original trilogy
when Episode VII debuts in 2015?